I am finally ready to upgrade from my inadequate "EQ1" type mount. Woodland Hills has the WO Eazy Touch with Tripod for $425 shipped. The one question I have is whether I need something to attach the Orion 80ED. I gather that it is not ready to attach out of the bag, but I could be wrong. Anyone want to enlighten me?

Doesn't the ED80 come from Orion with a short dovetail attached to the OTA? If so you already have what you need.

That's a good question. Perhaps someone who's actually owned/seen one could fill us in.

On their description they say that the scope is sold as an optical tube assembly only, without accessories and that compatible tube rings are #7371 which are sold separately. And on the "Specs" page the Mount Style indicates optical tube only.

The photo does enlarge enough to clearly show a block of some kind on the OTA but it does not appear to be tapered as a dovetail would. Some kind of photo tripod mount?

A word of caution about the E-Z touch dovetail "shoe" into which, the dovetail bar that is attached to the scope, fits.

WO uses a Vixen-size dovetail shoe but it is differently shaped than many other dovetail shoes. the top of the shoe (the receptacle into which the bar fits) is too narrow to simply lay a standard vixen dovetail in it. You must therefore insert the dovetail bar by "threading" it into the shoe from one of its ends.

Many standard dovetail bars that you buy may not fit because you connect the rings to the dovetail bar with a bolt and nut which sticks out of the bottom of the dovetail bar and prevents you from threading the bar into the shoe. I.E, the bolt that sticks out of the bottom of many dovetail bars prevents you from threading the dovetail with rings attached into the E-Z touch.

You can solve this problem, by buying an expensive $88 special dovetail bar sold by WO, or buying another shoe to attach on the other side of the EZ-touch that is larger at its top.

I have the e-z touch, and though I like it very much, I found this to be a problem when I tried to insert a telescope with an Orion dovetail bar ($15)and rings and it would not fit. (I usually have a SV102 refractor on a clamshell mount inserted into the EZ touch and this does not have any projections on the bottom side of the bar, so it fits just fine). I did, for this and other reasons, add a second larger dovetail bar shoe to the other side so I would not have that problem.

I drone on like this because if you simply attach rings to a thinner cheaper standard dovetail bar, it might not fit!

A word of caution about the E-Z touch dovetail "shoe" into which, the dovetail bar that is attached to the scope, fits.

WO uses a Vixen-size dovetail shoe but it is differently shaped than many other dovetail shoes. the top of the shoe (the receptacle into which the bar fits) is too narrow to simply lay a standard vixen dovetail in it. You must therefore insert the dovetail bar by "threading" it into the shoe from one of its ends.

The Orion Deluxe AZ dual head mount had the same issue. I had a heck of a time inserting the dovetail bar that came with my SV102ED because the screws holding it onto the clamshell are not recessed. I was finally able to somehow get it onto the mount, but I ended up scratching both the mount and the dovetail.

I took a countersink bit to my dovetail bar. Now, the screws are recessed into the bar so it goes on the EzTouch with no issues. Works great, and the screw head covers the exposed metal caused from the drilling...